Dominic Ongwen: Ugandan rebel commander found guilty of war crimes

Dominic Ongwen, a child soldier who became commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army, faced 70 charges because of a reign of terror in the early 2000s.

LRA fugitive chief Joseph Kony waged a bloody campaign from 2002 to 2004 in northern Uganda.

The case was the first at the ICC to involve an alleged perpetrator and victim of the same war crimes, with Ongwen himself being kidnapped by the rebels as a child on the way to school, according to his defense.

Former commander of the LRA Sinia Brigade, Ongwen told the court that he was kidnapped from his home by LRA fighters when he was 14.

“We recognize that there may be a paradox in the fact that the stories told by so many witnesses in this case could, in other circumstances, be the story of Dominic Ongwen himself,” said prosecutor Benjamin Gumpert during the trial.

“But that is no reason to expect that crimes can be committed with impunity. We have a choice of how we will behave, and when that choice is to kill, rape and enslave, we should expect to be held accountable.”

“Today’s decision reminds me that there is something called justice,” said Jobson Obol, 42. He survived an LRA ambush on a bus in 1999, in which his father died.

“Ongwen is not the only one who was kidnapped as a child and forced into the ranks of the LRA,” he told CNN in the Ugandan capital, Kampala.

“I have relatives and friends who have been kidnapped and escaped … They have been rehabilitated and forgiven by their own communities and families.”

Millicent Ayot, 38, lost his parents and four siblings in an arson fire in the LRA.

“Ongwen’s conviction brings some relief, but it does not bring back lost lives,” she said. “We hope the court will keep him in jail for the rest of his life.”

The court can sentence Ongwen to up to 30 years in prison or life in certain circumstances, according to the Rome Statute, the founding document of the ICC.

The death penalty is not foreseen.

Ongwen, nicknamed “White Ant”, is also the first member of the LRA to face justice in the Hague court or elsewhere due to the bloodshed that has spread across four African countries.

The court granted 4,095 victims the right to participate in the trial, which began in December 2016, according to a press release.

The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, presented 109 witnesses and experts. and the total case record includes more than 1,760 records.